Chapter Text
“You know. I don’t even know why you guys still drive me to this. I’m 18 now. I should be allowed to drive myself to camp. Especially since it’s my last one.” Stiles had made this exact same argument every day for the past week and a half. Only now it was completely pointless since he was sitting in the back seat of the family jeep that his father, Sheriff Stilinski was currently driving. His mother Claudia just hummed from the front seat, too focused on her needlepoint to be concerned about her son's 45th attempt to ditch camp.
“Stiles, you know you can't have the car at camp. I don’t know how many times we have to explain this. The Hales have the bus for any outings and this is for you guys to get closer to nature. I don’t know what you expect from me here, kid.” the Sheriff sighed heavily as he had this exact same response to the argument that Stiles had been making for the past week and a half.
“What if something happens?”
“Talia will use their emergency vehicle.”
“What if something happens to that one?”
“I guess they’ll use the bus.”
“But what if–”
“Then Derek can carry you. Or they’ll call the station.” The Sheriff finally relented, “Stiles. It’s your last camp. You’re going to miss this kind of stuff next year so don’t try to get out of this now. I don’t even know why you would want to.”
It was then that his mother spoke up as she weaved her needle in between pieces of the fabric, holding it in place for later, “This is your last summer with your friends and then you’ll all be focused on school and then you’ll be all over the country separated from each other for college. Just have this one week. Just one week. I promise you don’t need your discman, you don’t need your radio, you sure as heck don’t need those magazines you always have your nose stuck into.”
Stiles looked out the window and watched the trees pass as they went deeper and deeper into the Hale Reserve. Camp Beacon Lake wasn’t actually that far from town, just a few miles, but with the tree coverage of the protected land it immediately made Stiles feel cut off from the world. It didn’t matter that his friends would be there — well. It did matter. It mattered a lot. It was just different. And Stiles hadn’t been able to get rid of this overwhelming feeling that something would go wrong but his dad was right. This was his last camp. It would be a great one!
It had to be.